The report states that the ministry hopes to implement this system in the coming weeks and following this the implementation, domestic airline companies will be able to send these boarding cards to passengers via email, after they check-in online or through telephone. That being said, its worth noting that these mobile boarding passes are currently limited to only domestic airline companies.

Citing an official who is currently working on this project, the report mentions that the concept has been cleared by the ministry and they are currently working on solving the issue of allowing passengers to carry their mobile phones during the security check to enable Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officials verify the boarding pass and allow the passenger to board the plane. At present, passengers are mandated to keep their mobile phones along with their luggage during the security check process.

Implications

This is definitely a welcome move, as it will result in lesser queues at the boarding pass counter and also help airports reduce paper costs on boarding passes. However, we feel that the government should roll out this system and not keep the project as yet another pilot project. We also feel that the government should extend this feature to International flights as well.

If the project does get through, we hope that government also allows third party apps and OTAs to access this service to pass on similar benefits to their customers. For instance, this development could make services like Apple’s Passbook or the recently launched Samsung Wallet app finally relevant in India, and allow OTAs to offer paperless boarding passes to their customers.

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Remember that Indian airports already accepts virtual tickets, following a notification from India’s Bureau of Civil Aviation Security. However, back in January, the Airport security (at least at Mumbai Airport) had no clue about this order. We are not sure if the situation has changed now.

Cleartrip had also launched paperless tickets for flight, hotel and train bookings via Apple’s Passbook. These passes displayed important information about the traveler’s trip upfront with additional details on the reverse of the pass. The site has also enabled location and time-based Passbook notifications, so that passes automatically pop-up on the user’s smartphone’s screen, close to the time when they’re required.

However, since paperless boarding passes were not supported at the moment, the company was limited to offer only paperless tickets. We also believe that this development might also lead other OTAs to launch similar initiatives to their customers.

Paperless willbe a need of the hour. This not only saves paper but also improves productivity of any organzation, CA firms and end business owners

Ankit Ahuja

Well Paperless tickets are very much on, as have taken multiple flights from Delhi and Mumbai airport and all seems fine with security, Coming to Paperless boarding pass that still needs to be seen. They use QR or NFC in future and how our security infra is overhauled to adapt to this will be interesting things to watch out for.

LTA claims currently require boarding passes. How will the process accommodate the new mobile / electronic passes?

Anonymous

LTA requirements for train travel also stipulated original train tickets. However, with the advent of e-tickets the requirement was waived off. Similar thing to be followed for electronic boarding passes.

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